


The Dancer

by afterandalasia



Series: Femslash Yuletide 2014 [9]
Category: Frozen (2013), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
Genre: Arendelle, Crossover Pairings, Dancing, F/F, Femslash Yuletide 2014, Lesbian Elsa, Post-Frozen (2013), Street Performers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-28 19:19:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2744114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arendelle knows how to celebrate its Christmas season, and this year a travelling troupe has come to join the entertainment. Elsa finds herself enraptured by their dancer, La Esmeralda.</p><p> </p><p>Written for Femslash Yuletide Day Nine, "Holiday Music".</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dancer

**Author's Note:**

> Yup, 2013 prompts. Whoops.
> 
> The surname Guybertaut comes from the _La Notre-Dame de Paris_ novel by Victor Hugo.

Arendelle certainly knew how to celebrate. It had spent so long without the presence of its royals that it could entertain itself, and from St Lucia's Day to Epiphany there would be parties each night, music and dancing and great tables of food in the streets. Half of the city refused to work, and the other half was unable to anyway and joined in the celebrations as a result. For many years, Elsa had listened to the music from her window, then turned away and gone back to her books again.  
  
This year, it seemed, she would neither have to do that, nor be able to. Anna, dressed up in warm clothes, had all but marched into Elsa's room and told her that they were going to the winter celebration, that nobody would be expecting to see the Queen and Princess and anyway, as long as Elsa wore ordinary clothes no-one would notice anyhow. And so Elsa found herself bundled into winter clothes, her hair tucked up beneath a hat where no-one would see it, and hustled out into the corridor where Kristoff was waiting with an expression which clearly said that there was nothing he had been able to do to stop Anna.  
  
"I heard from Marta that there's this travelling troupe here from somewhere in the South," said Anna. "And then I was reading up, and did you know that in some countries they used to call today the Feast of Fools, rather than Epiphany? Only they've gotten stricter nowadays, so I think that some of that tradition has drifted northwards a bit? And that was actually what gave me the idea for us to come out, I mean, if a normal person can be a king for a day then why can't the Queen be a normal person for a day? So, here we are!" She concluded, dragging Elsa through the gates of the castle and out into the streets.  
  
Elsa still struggled to keep up with Anna sometimes. Not that she at all minded, of course, but it could take a moment for her to realise that her sister had actually finished her stream of consciousness and was ready for a response. "Well, let's just... be discreet," she opted for.  
  
Anna snorted, which Elsa took to mean that they knew who was good at discretion around here and who wasn't. Elsa... was not so sure. But Anna was probably right that, as long as they were discreet, there would be no problem in their seeing the celebrations from the inside, and not from some distant window.  
  
The crowds certainly did not seem to notice the three more people that joined their numbers. Anna knew the words to some of the songs, it seemed, and tried to sing along until Elsa caught hold of her and pulled her away again. They ate chestnuts piping hot from the fire, gave coins to any of the children who came close and raised their hands hopefully, and dodged around various of the dances that were taking place in the streets.  
  
"This is so amazing!" said Anna, more than once, and though Elsa laughed it was meant as an agreement.  
  
Somewhere up ahead, a temporary stage had been put up, and Elsa stood on the tips of her toes to try to look over people's heads. It wasn't particularly successful. She could she the top half of a man wearing an extraordinary set of checked clothes and a broad-brimmed hat, and hear him speaking in a more southern language.  
  
"What is going on over there?" she said, mostly to herself, as the man gesticulated and spoke with passion in his voice.  
  
Kristoff stepped around them, took Anna's hand and started to weave his way through the crowd. "Come on, then," he said, trying to sound put-upon but not quite managing it. He started to shoulder his way through the crowd, Anna and Elsa following in his wake. At the last minute, he managed to make a gap and push Anna and Elsa through, and suddenly Elsa found herself at the front of the crowd, barely two feet from the stage itself.  
  
" _Danse, La Esmeralda!_ " The man on the stage called. " _Danse!_ "  
  
In a puff of smoke, he was gone, and the music struck up around the woman who had appeared in his place. Elsa _knew_ that it was nothing more than a smoke bomb, no magic involved at all, but it did not stop her heart from beating a little faster.  
  
The woman... danced. And yet that was so simple a word, such an understatement for the flick of her hips, the sway of her arms, the way that her feet caught every beat of the drum. She had curls of black hair, dusky green, green eyes that flashed in time with the red of her lips and the white of her teeth. Her colours were so strong that Elsa felt like a shadow beside her, like a watercolour set beside the vibrancy of the real world. Gold coins flashed on the scarf around her hips, jingled at her wrists and ankles.  
  
People cheered and clapped, and Anna was clapping with them, bouncing in place in excitement. Elsa was too entranced to join them. The woman's skirts fluttered around her as she twirled, more beautiful than any of the ballerinas that every took to the stage, more alive, with a smile not just on her lips but in every arc of her hands and toss of her hair.  
  
"How is she not _cold_?" said Anna, making Elsa jump.  
  
The woman's shoulders and arms were bare, even her feet bare against the wooden stage. At least it would not be so cold as the stone, but even so Elsa could see the mist of peoples' breathing on the air, the red flush in cheeks and noses that was probably not just from the mulled wine. The sheer rush, perhaps, of being onstage. It was brighter than any fire in the woman, the love of dancing.  
  
"It doesn't matter," Elsa replied.  
  
At the climax of the music, the woman threw her scarf into the air, glittering purple and gold and sparkling in the firelight. People whooped and grabbed for it, and even Elsa was watching its arc when there was a flash of fire-bright light on the stage again, and by the time that people looked around the woman was gone.  
  
It only made the applause louder. Anna grabbed hold of Elsa's arm and leant close to shout over the noise. "We have to meet her!"  
  
"I think I can manage that," Elsa replied.  
  
  
  
  
  
There were, after all, some advantages to being Queen. Certainly it came with a lot of duties, a crown that never came off no matter that Elsa had once tried to cast it aside, but there were... things that could be arranged. An appearance of a particularly talented troupe of street dancers at the celebration at the castle the following evening was certainly not beyond them.  
  
The harder part was keeping a straight face. Elsa was relieved to be wearing her icy clothes again, the material far more natural against her skin than fabric nowadays, but acting as if she had never seen the leader of the group - Clopin Trouillefou, it inspired - or their lead dancer, Esmeralda, before.  
  
There were no smokebombs or flashes of light involved in the dance in the hall. Esmeralda was wearing shoes, and a long-sleeved dress, and though the scarf around her hips were fringed it did not have the coins, and she did not make quite such use of it. The dance was still beautiful, but it was not what it had been in the streets and by the firelight.  
  
People applauded politely, and Esmeralda curtsied with flowing movements.  
  
Afterwards, Elsa realised that she was trying to work up the courage to speak to the dancer. Making small talk with dignitaries, ministers, and those to whom she needed to speak as Queen was one thing. Apparently, talking to Esmeralda was quite another.  
  
It was not until Anna grinned pointedly, placed a firm hand in the small of Elsa's back, and steered her across the floor that she actually managed to find her tongue. Unfortunately, it was to manage, " _Anna, what are you doing?_ " in an undertone.  
  
"You want to talk to her," said Anna, in marginally less of an undertone, "so you're going to talk to her."  
  
Elsa went to reply something, but the crowd had a tendency to part for the Queen and Princess, and before Elsa could say anything Esmeralda had turned around and fixed her with beautiful and piercing eyes.  
  
She went weak at the knees.  
  
"Your Majesty," said Anna, still smiling, "may I introduce to you Esmeralda Guybertaut."  
  
Esmeralda curtsied slightly. "Your Majesty," she said.  
  
"I was most impressed with your dancing," said Elsa. She was relieved that it sounded normal even to her own ears. "Did you train somewhere?"  
  
A shrug. Elsa tried not to stare at the curve of Esmeralda's shoulders. "Not in a school, as such. But I did have a fine teacher."  
  
"Though it was not quite like your dances yesterday." Elsa heard the words coming from her own lips and wondered when it was that she had taken on Anna's role of saying things at inappropriate times. She felt heat rise in her chest and across her cheeks, and was actually relieved that she could concentrate on not letting snow prick into being in the air around her.  
  
"You saw?" It seemed to catch Esmeralda by surprise as well, though her expression did not slip so much as become quizzical. "From a window?"  
  
Anna seemed to choose this moment to join in, instead. "We snuck out," she said. "Well, I suppose it doesn't really count as sneaking out, because it's not like the Queen needs to sneak out. But we were out there. And we saw."  
  
Esmeralda bowed her head to her. "Your Highness, if I may say so... you remind me of someone I once knew. I think it's the hair."  
  
"We saw your performance in the town yesterday," Elsa said. She tried to make it sound like it was clarifying, but she knew that she was not particularly adding anything. "It was most impressive."  
  
"Clopin felt it might not be quite suitable for this audience," said Esmeralda.  
  
"A pity," said Elsa. She felt her blush deepen as Esmeralda looked at her and smiled.  
  
"Perhaps you would like to see me dance again," Esmeralda suggested, in a way that was absolutely and completely acceptable but which made Elsa feel like they were the only two people in the room. "On another occasion."  
  
Elsa swallowed, but smiled nervously. "I... would like that very much."  
  
  
  
  
  
In private company, Esmeralda was rather different. More vivacious, more fun, impersonating people that she had met from other kingdoms and performing sleight-of-hand tricks with chocolates and grapes from the dinner table. She translated for Clopin, whom she called her uncle and whose magic tricks were even more impressive; he did card tricks with a deck that he produced seemingly from nowhere, passed nails through his hand, and made items of fruit hover above his plate. Despite not speaking a word of Arendellen, he chattered away happily enough, and Esmeralda repeated what she apparently considered pertinent phrases.  
  
"You have travelled for some years, then?" said Elsa. She was fascinated just by the idea, a life spent in a dozen countries instead of a dozen rooms.  
  
Esmeralda nodded. She glanced over at Clopin, who was tossing nuts into the air and catching them into his mouth while the servers tried to keep straight faces at the edges of the room.  
  
"My whole life," she replied. "It is fun, exciting. I have lost count of the cities I have seen. But... it can be lonely, sometimes."  
  
"You don't get to stay anywhere."  
  
Another nodded. That, perhaps, Elsa understood a little; the sense of having no home to go to, no place to feel safe. "Well, you are welcome to stay in Arendelle for as long as you please. Though I might suggest getting some warmer clothes."  
  
"Noted," said Esmeralda, though the way that she looked Elsa's dress was enough for Elsa to feel warm all over again.  
  
  
  
  
  
It turned out that Esmeralda looked good in an ice dress, glittering and fluttering as she danced in the quiet halls of the castle, for Elsa and for Elsa only.  
  
It turned out that she looked even better out of it.


End file.
